


Doomed

by LazyAdmiral



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Angst, Did I Mention Angst?, F/M, Non-Specific Inquisitor, Pre-Trespasser, post-main game
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-07
Updated: 2017-05-07
Packaged: 2018-10-29 05:59:11
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,513
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10847898
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LazyAdmiral/pseuds/LazyAdmiral
Summary: If she felt old back when she was first declared a murderer on a heretical crusade with a ragtag group of elves, mages, and mercenaries in tow… well, now she feels positively ancient.That might be down to the fact she’s dying, though.~Post-main game, pre-Trespasser Anchor-related angst. Non-specific Female Inquisitor.





	Doomed

**Author's Note:**

> Another piece that's been lying in a folder for months and I've finally gotten around to tidying up and posting. I'm rather attached to this one, and I'm definitely of the headcanon that by the time we get to Trespasser, the Anchor has been steadily been getting worse and worse (rather than what appears to be a fairly sudden deterioration as seen in-game). So yeah - heavy on the angst, with a little hurt/comfort thrown in at the end. Enjoy and please let me know what you think!

When she closes her eyes, it almost feels like the myriad of other aches and pains she carries. Maker knows she’s old enough now that weeks on end spent running across half of Orlais and Ferelden can no longer come without a price. Tired feet, aching knees, and a back that likes to twinge every time she moves the wrong way; a tide of weary pain that eases in and out of her awareness. If she felt old back when she was first declared a murderer on a heretical crusade with a ragtag group of elves, mages, and mercenaries in tow… well, now she feels positively _ancient_.

That might be down to the fact she’s dying, though.

The Anchor’s been getting worse. A build-up of Fade energy, the theory goes. The mark itself is like a miniature rift embedded into her flesh, and it bleeds the magic of the Fade into her muscles and bones. When the Breach was active, and rifts were sprouting all over the south of Thedas, it was easy to dispel energy by closing them, but now, it has nowhere to go. It seeps into her body, creating micro-fractures in the Veil itself and if it continues, it is only a matter of time until one opens in a lung, or her heart.

Vivienne’s letters are warm and confident, an adamant refusal to take so ignoble a defeat lying down. Dorian’s are more measured – he’s seen the results of a fool’s hope before – but he is full of suggestions and theories, and deep down she knows he will have difficulty accepting the inevitable as well. What she wouldn’t give for Solas’s counsel now, but there’s been no sign or word from him since they defeated Corypheus and after two years, even she doubts she’ll see him again in this lifetime.

She has her own letters, carefully crafted for each of her friends, for the family she pulled together with blood and sweat and tears. Labelled and bound, they sit in a box on her desk, ready to be sent out when the time comes.

Thom’s last visit comes a month before the Exalted Council, and she knows when he looks at her that he can already tell. There are shadows and hollows in her face that have made their home over the course of months; sometimes, the pain is so excruciating she cannot stomach to eat anything and Josephine has had to call for her dress uniform to be taken in twice already.

“I managed to get word to someone in the Wardens,” he murmurs when they are in private. “He’s promised to send on what he can find, if there’s anything they know of.”

She thanks him, because last time she told him it was unnecessary it sparked a fury in both of them that she no longer has the energy for. To be honest, she no longer has much energy for anything these days.

He remains at Skyhold for the rest of the month, and neither of them comments on why he lingers or when he needs to return to duty. She knows better than to ask what his superiors think of his sudden leave of absence, or if they’ve even been informed.

The days are easier. To their credit, the regimen of potions and enchantments Vivienne and Dorian have put together allows her to get through the day – it’s mostly rubbing shoulders with dignitaries and wrangling with treaties nowadays. On the few scouting missions she’s needed on, Thom follows, with Cole and Cassandra alongside.

“You like those times the best,” Cole comments after they’ve cleared out a lingering group of Red Templars on the Storm Coast, and Thom and Cassandra are playfully sniping at each other, and the blood singing in her veins is almost enough to forget the ache spreading like poison up her arm. “Voices clattering like swords, like empty tankards on wooden tables. They sound like home.”

“It has been quiet recently, hasn’t it?” she says by way of agreement, breathing in sea-salt air and she wonders how Varric is doing and if Kirkwall’s nobility is ready to throttle him yet. She also wonders what sky Solas is dreaming under tonight, what secret whispers he hears of a past long lost. If Bull’s been to visit Dorian yet; if _he’s_ keeping him safe and he’s keeping _him_ happy. Whether Vivienne still outshines every threat like diamonds and steel, and what mad prank Sera’s planned next and if she’ll ever see--

She turns away from the coast and makes for home. She doesn’t look back.

The night they return, she’s tired and aching but restless too and when Thom follows her to her rooms, she only waits until the door is latched before she drags him against the wall and kisses him hard. There’s no finesse, only teeth and tongue and _heat,_ and his answering groan makes her shiver. She swallows it down, and the next, and the next, feeling her lungs grow heavy and tight as she struggles to breathe.

They end up making love right there on the stairwell, and it’s desperate and hurried and far more befitting of a pair of teenagers than two grown adults who know better. But as she clings to him, giggling and gasping as they come back to themselves, and feels more than hears the answering dark chuckle rumbling in his chest, it doesn’t seem to matter that she’ll have bruises from the rough stone wall in the morning.

Still entangled, Thom leaves their clothes and armour where they fell and carries her to bed, setting her down long enough to retrieve a small phial from one of the many in her bedside drawer. She drinks it without comment; she hates the stuff because it muddles her senses, turning the world soft and muted, but it is the only way she’ll sleep.

The night is warm – summer is finally beginning to creep into the mountains and the air no longer holds the same chill – so he leaves one of the windows open for fresh air before coming to bed. His torso is a solid, comforting weight at her back, and his hand seeks out her own marked one, covering it and entwining their fingers against her bare chest.

“If I were a more conceited man, I’d think the Maker was punishing me.” His voice is low, barely more than a breath against her shoulder. His beard tickles against her skin. “I should be long dead by now. Instead, I seem to escape time and again, and yet…”

The fingers around her own tighten.

She feels him shatter, not all at once but in fragments, stone crumbling against wind and sea and time. It is all she can do to turn around in his embrace and hold him, and remember how long ago, her parents both smiled and soothed even as her world fell apart. She looks at him in the dim light, takes in the shadows of his face and the silver of his hair, and remembers how angry and hopeless she’d felt, how alone, and how she couldn’t understand why either of them had been so calm even as they were ripped one by one from her arms.

She’s calm now, like the ocean on a clear night, and maybe it’s the medicine or maybe it’s something else, but she’s not afraid or angry or desperate. She is sad, because there’s still so much she hasn’t seen or done, but she’s also seen and done so much more than she ever hoped for in her life. She found love in the most unexpected place and kept it even when all circumstance tried to tear it apart. She has made friends out of family and family out of friends; walked across half of Thedas and into the Fade itself. She’s done enough, she thinks, to be more than satisfied.

“It’s all right,” she whispers, touching his face and it’s not, she knows it isn’t but there are no words to bridge the gap between her calm acceptance and his understandable grief. The green light of the Anchor catches on the tracks of tears lining his cheeks, and with a gentle thumb, she brushes them away.

“It’s all right,” she murmurs against his lips, and it’s his turn to kiss her, burning and bruising. He pulls her close, fingers catching on too prominent ribs but that’s all right. There’ll be the marks of his hands tomorrow, and that’s all right too.

He falls into fitful sleep when they’re done and although the Fade pulls at her too, she lingers a moment longer to trace fingers and lips over his face, pressing feather-light kisses against his proud, slightly crooked nose, against the lines on his forehead, and his tear-reddened eyes. She thinks of the future – his future – and hopes when he hears that final song he will not be alone; she thinks he has been alone long enough.

When she falls asleep, it is with the taste of salt on her tongue, and she dreams of the sea.


End file.
